Gift
by The Oddity
Summary: Emo Triela, Santa ’Etta, cranky Claes, Germans, YouTube, good old Rico and tiny stereos. This is Christmas. [CHAPTER SEVENTEEN] Petrushka does the Hustle.
1. gift 1

"_So, uh, what happened to that iPod you had?"_

"_What? You mean that tiny thing? I lost it. Honestly, how can you people expect me not to when it's that small?"_

"_..."_

**G I F T  
**first arc

It's Christmastime again. The magical end of the year where everyone in the Social Welfare Agency is elated and joyous, whether on a visible front or not.

It is a tiny, insignificant thing, Triela reflects, as she stares at the star-strewn sky above, amassed with swirling deep blue clouds. Christmas at the Agency was always, and always will be, the same. The gift giving functions like clockwork: receive a teddybear from Hilshire (still nowhere near sixty-two; she would have to ask some of the cyborgs to pitch in for her next time) a few new suits, and whatever strange presents that the girls would give to her she would, ultimately, lose.

Yet the strangest thing was how quickly it was all said and done. The festivities would last a night, complete with a nice Christmas feast in the cafeteria, but... The next day always contained more strenuous training. The same regime they stuck to every day of the year. Triela felt like Christmas spoiled her; she had a taste of true contentment and she only wanted more, but she knew in her heart that the Agency would never let her have it.

And so, with these thoughts tucked into her mind, this was the bona fide truth why Triela was so irascible over the holidays.

With a sigh, the blonde rose from her seat on the windowsill and strolled over to the dresser, where several teddybears sat together with different bows around their necks. She lifted the middlemost one and hugged it to her chest tightly.

"I need to be happier during Christmas," she mumbled, closing her eyes and sighing once more. "Henrietta always makes that face when she finds out I'm not full of 'holiday spirit'..." Triela smiled at the thought and slowly drew the teddybear down from her face. She purveyed it with teary eyes and placed it on the top of the dresser, then made to wipe her tears on her sleeve, when a resounding knock issued from her door. She wrenched it open.

Standing in the doorway and gazing timidly at her was none other than Henrietta. Triela stared at her.

And stared.

And stared.

...And stared.

"..._What_ are you wearing?" Triela asked, eyeing the ridiculous red and white Santa outfit with horror.

Henrietta simpered. "That's the exact same thing Claes said when she saw me," she replied. "I've been given a mission."

"A...a what?"

"A mission."

"...No way," the blonde muttered, clutching her head as though it ached.

"You look like you've been crying. Is something wrong?" Henrietta inquired, peering concernedly at her friend. Triela froze and slowly lowered her arms to her sides, staring at the girl decked out in frivolous red velvet in front of her.

"No, nothing's wrong, nothing at all!" she said, shaking her head vehemently. "I...fell asleep against the window." Henrietta pursed her lips in a frown, unconvinced.

Triela winced. _Ack, better figure out a way to distract her._

"Say, uh, you mentioned a mission before. What was that all about?"

"Oh!" Henrietta grinned, and hoisted up a small velvet pouch reminiscent of Santa's own capacious toy sack. "This!"

"...Is the gun in there?"

"No, no," the brunette said, chuckling. "It's a special event that the Agency is doing to thank the cyborgs. They let me have the mission of giving them out to everyone."

"Please don't tell me they're giving us Derringers," Triela mumbled, grimacing.

"Nope. It's this!" Henrietta opened the pouch with a flourish and extracted a miniscule white object, and held it to Triela's face.

Silence.

"...It's so small," Triela said, poking it cautiously as if it were an explosive.

"They're called 'iPod Nanos'. Aren't they cute, Triela?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so. But what do they _do?_"

"Umm, Giuseppe said they're like stereos."

Triela's face blanched. "You've got to be kidding me. How in the—"

"...Triela..."

"...How can this possibly be anything like a stereo? It's too tiny! I can't fit a single tape in here, let alone a CD!"

Henrietta heaved a deep, troubled sigh, and closed the pouch back up. "You're supposed to connect them to a computer, go online, and download music."

"D...download...online..."

"I don't know either, actually," the brunette said with an air of revelation, and looked up at the ceiling. "Giuseppe told me that the handlers felt bad about how 'closed-off' we are from modern day society and these iPods are the cutting edge of new technology."

"Hold up," Triela said, "cutting edge of technology? Aren't we supposed to be that?"

There was silence for some minutes.

Henrietta rolled up the red sleeve of her jacket, checking a gold watch around her wrist. "Oh no, it's already seven o'clock!" she groaned. "I was supposed to give Angelica hers, by now! Oh no, oh no, oh no..." And with that, she scurried away, leaving behind a pair of earphones, an instruction booklet, and a very, very different Christmas indeed.


	2. gift 2

It would be four days until the big Agency Christmas banquet and Triela was snoozing dolefully on top of the table in her dormitory, head tucked innocently in the cradle of her arms, and her blonde pigtails sprawled out over the expanse of the wooden surface. Leaning against her arm, so very inconspicuously, was a small, white and square-shaped object, with a tiny display screen and set of control buttons on the front. Connecting from the bottom-right was a pair of earphones. The cord led steadily upwards, and ended with two little 'muffs' tucked into Triela's dark ears. Across the screen were the words:

_Ludwig van Beethoven_  
_Classical_  
_Moonlight Sonata_

The blonde emitted a tiny, barely audible grunt and shifted. Sunlight poured through the window and hit her eyes at a most uncomfortable angle, causing the sleeping Triela discomfort as she tried to shield her eyelids with her hand.

"Having fun, are you?"

"_Bwuh?!_" She sat bolt upright, the earphones popping out with the sudden movement. Triela snatched her iPod and hastily shut it down. She looked up to see her ebony-haired roommate smirking at her from the other side of the table.

"Claes..." Triela muttered dangerously.

"Triela," the bespectacled girl replied likewise, but with an air of humor that made her not any more threatening than Triela. "I see you've figured this ridiculous device out?"

"Yeah, kind of. Believe me, it took a while. First I had to read the entire instruction manual twice to actually get the gist of it, and then I coerced one of the staff into letting me use the computer for a moment." She stretched, and stared at what she once proclaimed to be a 'tiny stereo' fondly. "Still, I've got to admit, it's...somewhat endearing. I downloaded about a hundred different classical songs on it before they threw me offline." Triela paused for a moment. "So, uh, what happened to that iPod you had?"

"What? You mean that tiny thing? I lost it."

"..."

Silence or, as the blonde's studious roommate would put it, an atypical pervading of an awkwardly subdued pause.

"...Claes," Triela said.

"_What?_"

"Did you lose it deliberately?"

"No, I didn't," she replied firmly. "I really lost it. Honestly, how can you people expect me not to when it's so small? And it's worthless anyway. I'm perfectly fine with a real stereo." She rose from her seat and trudged over to the door. Triela leaned back in her own chair, watching her. Claes gave her roommate one final, scornful look, and exited, slamming the door.

"Daaaamn, Claes," Triela muttered to herself, fiddling with her iPod. "Way to be dramatic." She popped the earphones back in and smiled, satisfied.

Meanwhile, down the hall, Claes cursed bitterly under her breath as she turned around the corner.

_And besides, I wanted a red one._


	3. gift 3

"_What did you do to my cyborg?"_

"_What do you mean? I didn't do anything."_

"_Well, something's wrong with her. She refuses to stop singing this nonsense German song, even after I give her orders to."_

"...'_Well', the Internet's a hell of a thing."_

**G I F T  
**second arc

Henrietta was unusually cheerful today. Giuseppe smiled whimsically as he observed her skipping through the hallway, the cord of a pair of earphones extending from inside her new denim skirt pocket (which had actually once belonged to Enrica), blissfully ignorant of how utterly aberrant she looked at that moment.

The suave, dark-haired supervisor walked up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned.

"Having fun?" he asked, casually.

"WHAT?" the brunette replied. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU, GIUSEPPE!"

"I _said_," Giuseppe began, raising his voice a little, "having _fun?!_"

"I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

He frowned, deeply irritated, then pulled the earphones away from Henrietta. As they popped out, a horrific song filled the corridor. It was certainly a jolly beat, but not particularly modern; at least something from the 70's. Yet what was more disturbing was the fact that it was sung, entirely, in German, none of which Giuseppe really comprehended. He was never too hot at German.

"_Eeep!_" Henrietta extracted her iPod Nano from inside her pocket and hurried to pause the song. When she glanced back to her handler, his face was blanched, and he seemed rather shaken.

"W...what...was _that?_" he asked, clutching the sides of his head.

"Dschingis Khan," she replied simply.

"...Dsching...dschingi..."

"I found it on the Internet!" Henrietta seemed very delighted to inform Giuseppe of this, and even beamed.

"Why...were you listening to _that_, though?"

"I...really don't know," she said, and took on an expression indicating deep, complex thought. Giuseppe began to wonder where he went wrong. "But, um, I know some of the lyrics."

Sounding not very enthusiastic, the supervisor replied, "O-oh?"

She closed her eyes, and sang, "_Moskauuu... fremd und geheimnisvoll... türme aus rotem Gold, kalt wie das eissss..._"

The hall became drenched in silence following these words.

"...What do you think?" the brunette asked finally.

"It's, uh... Better than I ever was at German?"


	4. gift 4

It was two days before the big Christmas dinner at the Social Welfare Agency, and a certain frustrated blond was looking for his equally (yet with an "e", no less) blond cyborg, hoping to get some quick target practice in before eleven o'clock. As he hurried down the corridors, checking each room for her, he found that she was really not there at all. Indeed, Jean Croce did not know for the life of him where his cyborg was.

"Where is my cyborg?!" he mumbled to himself, passing her dormitory, when a strange sort of song drifted to his ears...

_Moskau, Moskau, wirf die Gläser an die Wand! Rußland ist ein schönes land! Oro ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! Hej!_

"What in the hell..."

He wrenched open the door, and nearly fainted with shock at what greeted his eyes. Henrietta sat in one of her dainty little chairs, watching as Rico performed an absurd, disturbing dance while singing entirely in German, one of those miniscule iPods clipped onto her jean pocket.

"_Moskau, Moskau, deine Seele ist so groß! Nachts da ist der Teufel los! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Hej!_" sang the blonde young girl. Henrietta clapped to what was supposedly the beat to a song, when her brown eyes fell upon Jean standing in the threshold.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Jean!" she called happily, waving to him. Rico ceased her dance and shouted one final "hej" before pausing her iPod and pulling her earphones out.

"Rico..." Jean muttered dangerously. "What were you singing just now? What ridiculousness is that?"

"It's a song called 'Moskau', by Dschingis Khan, sir," she replied nonchalantly.

"And just who introduced you to this?"

"Henrietta did, sir."

Jean rounded on the brunette, who shrank back in fear.

"I-it wasn't me, Mr. Jean!" she protested, holding her hands up.

"Then who did it? Who befouled the Agency name with this idiocy?"

"It...it was Mr. Hilshire."

A very, very long silence.

"...H-Hilshire...?" the blond said.

"Mr. Hilshire, sir." Henrietta nodded definitely. "He said he thought I might like it. He was right!" She giggled and beamed at the dumbfounded man in his corporate suit as Rico looked on, not very concerned with what was taking place.

Jean glanced at his cyborg. "Rico, I want you down at the shooting range in fifteen. And leave that ludicrous piece of technology behind. Understand?"

She saluted him. "Yes, sir!"


	5. gift 5

There are many reasons why one should never leave Henrietta alone for a long time; her mind tends to swing from one dramatic to another, just to preserve her fragile mind from going insane with lack of talking to somebody: extremely lonely, weepy, and generally unhappy is one of them...

...And "impressionable" might be the next. Giuseppe would find this out soon enough as he headed towards the cafeteria for lunch when the most peculiar, disturbing, and horrific thing to have ever crossed his sight (and he had seen rooms cleared by young girls wielding machine guns) left him quite ostensibly speechless.

Now, he didn't quite know how to phrase this. There wasn't any sensible way to, because frankly, it was just very silly.

Henrietta, running up and down the corridor with several bananas stuck on each of her fingers, screaming, "_MY HANDS ARE BANANAS!!_"

Giuseppe stood there. He didn't know what to say as Hilshire wandered towards him, clutching a cup in one hand. He smiled, watching Henrietta. "She learns well."

The Italian stared at him. "Y...you..."

Hilshire smirked and sipped his coffee.


	6. gift 6

It was two (maybe two) days before the big Agency Christmas dinner and each girl was happily enjoying their iPod gifts with their supervisors. All except Rico, who never remembered another time when Jean looked more frustrated than right now.

The blonde-haired operative had decided that, if she could _run_ while she listened to her miniscule stereo, then what reason was there that you couldn't do it during an obstacle course run-through?

Huffing in time to her one thousandth, three hundred and fifty-sixth play of "Moskau", Rico mounted the wall and began climbing feverishly up it, when something grasped her leg and tugged her back down. Jean was red-faced and quite obviously irritated as he pulled the earphones away from his protégée.

"What are you listening to this for?! You're supposed to be concentrating!" he spat. "Now hand over this newfangled device and drop and give me fifty!"

Complying, Rico dropped and, after much rummaging in her pocket, pulled out a $50 bill. She held it up to Jean.

He accepted the money and said, "Good."


	7. gift 7

Trudging through the corridor with fury in his eyes, Jean Croce's footsteps could have probably been heard halfway across the Agency premises. He skidded to a halt in front of his dearest little brother's office and wrenched the door open, much to the surprise of Giuseppe, who had been sitting at his desk and tinkering with a little model ship and looked up in pleasant shock.

"Oh, hello Je—"

"What did you do to my cyborg?"

His voice was accusatory and angry, so much that Giuseppe had, quite simply, never experienced something so terrifyingly intimidating in his life.

"Wh... What do you mean? I didn't do anything," he responded, grinning nervously.

Jean's demeanor changed only slightly to his more brisk, professional side as he addressed, "Well, something's wrong with her. She refuses to stop singing this nonsense German song, even after I give her orders to."

In that instant, Giuseppe knew what it was.

"...'Well,' the Internet's a hell of a thing."

"..."


	8. gift 8

"_Sometimes, I start to feel claustrophobic about working at the Agency..."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because there are so many damn cyborgs!"_

**G I F T**  
third arc

It wasn't often that there was something every single supervisor who worked at the Social Welfare Agency could safely agree on — usually personalities conflicted, with tired accusations of the other "doing it wrong" and the more professional men getting quietly irate until they finally lost it and told everyone to shut up. But the one thing they could agree upon was that there was just too many cyborgs. The Agency was like a housing ground; very few could actually muster up the old boring feelings back when there was only Angelica around to do any killing (or lack thereof).

Occasionally, Giuseppe would ponder on this. With Henrietta latched securely onto his arm, one hand carrying her lunch tray, he looked around the cafeteria, frowning thoughtfully. One table sat all the second-stage cyborgs: Petrushka, Svetlana, Delilah, and Renata, among the rest. Otherwise, the countless first-stages were spread evenly across the lunchroom, each, it seemed, jamming to their iPod Nanos while they ate.

The handler began to make for the table filled with the other handlers (one of the two, anyway), when Henrietta subtlety steered him towards a different one, grinning and giggling girlishly. She sat down and stared at him, almost creepily until he followed suit across from her.

As Henrietta began talking animatedly to Rico, Giuseppe's eyes trailed along the table at the rest of the cyborgs: A stylishly-clad girl with short, wild black hair; a girl with blonde, Angelica-esque hair; two girls who sat side-by-side and had the exact same hairstyles, _twins_ even; and girl with a strangely fierce expression and lengthy sable tresses, not to mention all the other ones he didn't recognize. The table over was occupied by three odd males who weren't really handlers (at this point Giuseppe had to note that he never saw them before in his life, nor had he realized the Agency branched out so much so soon), with Triela resting her head on the shoulder of one of them and sighing lovingly.

Henrietta seemed to notice this as well, and frowned. "Triela doesn't talk much anymore."

"R-r-really?" Giuseppe replied, still watching the blonde.

"Yes," Rico chimed in. "She's very busy with her boyfriend, Frederick. ...I like him, though, he's very nice to me." Triela had started to feed her 'boyfriend' lunch.

Henrietta pouted. "He's nice to me, too. But...I'm kind of jealous." It was at this point that Giuseppe's stomach dropped, along with his appetite entirely.

"His conditioning is low."

Another voice spoke up suddenly, startling Giuseppe and causing him to shriek in surprise. He stared at the speaker, a young girl seated a little ways away from the handler, the one with the nearly-white hair. She sampled her chicken sandwich before continuing, "Your brother is in a right fit about most of the cyborgs here. They're all on low conditioning dosages... It's not just yours anymore."

Come to think of it, Jean had looked like he was ready to pop a blood vessel any day now. When Giuseppe turned back to the girl, she was sporting earphones and humming a little song.

"Hey, Henrietta..." he began. "I'll...see you later. I've gotta get some air."

The brunette frowned, but nodded. "Alright."

● ● ●

Additionally, Svetlana is mine, Delilah is V. Gainsborough's, Renata is Roastpuff's, the three "odd males" are Frederick, Edward (Panzer's), and Alpha (Boomer's), the stylish girl with black hair is a Liesel cameo because I felt like it (with apologies to Nachtsider), the girl with white-blonde hair is Clarice (my own), the twins are V-san's, and the girl with the fierce expression is mine (Odilia). In the next chapter, we'll probably see some rather hilarious fighting between the various "missing links" between the first and second stages.


	9. gift 9

It was the morning of the Agency banquet and most of the cyborgs, more notably the second-stages, were hanging in the library, having nothing better to do as it was their day off. Svetlana reclined in the wooden chair, propping her feet on the lengthy wooden table, and a cheery pop tune buzzing from her earphones. Across from her was a shorter, younger girl, her light brown hair barely touching her shoulders and a book propped in front of her. Her mouth was moving, but Svetlana couldn't hear a word she was saying.

Finally, the blonde tugged the left earphone out and said, "What now?"

"Oh!" Delilah smiled for a moment. "I was just saying… I'm waiting for my next handler currently."

"Uh-huh. Earth-shattering news there, Delili," Svetlana droned, eliciting a few chuckles from Petrushka. "Which one is this? #578?"

"I think so. ...They just keep dying, I'm not sure why."

Renata, her red tresses in a usual bun on her head, shuddered inadvertently and turned her iPod up louder as to block out the conversation (which was a rather easy feat to accomplish, as Delilah herself made it a point to share some Rammstein with her fellow cyborg fen). Her blue eyes scanned the display screen, and she murmured, quietly, "..._Du_..._hast._"

Svetlana nodded, and recited: "_Willst du, bis der Tod euch scheidet, treu ihr sein für alle Tage?_"

Simultaneously, the cyborgs replied, "_Nein!_"

Delilah beamed. "I'm so happy to be with friends."

A cacophonous crash cut them all off sharply, followed by a teenage boy and a six-year-old girl's arguing. Svetlana quickly shut her iPod off and slid beneath the table swiftly, listening. Renata screamed and flopped backwards in her chair.

"I won't let you stop them from aborting the baby, Frederick! I'm sorry!"

"It's my baby as well as Triela's! They have no right to kill it!"

"_Frederick..._" Guinevere whined. "Frederick, please listen to me...!"

"They are not aborting that baby! That's final!"

"How would you try to stop them?" Renata muttered, picking her chair up and sitting back down.

There was a faint swish of cloth, and a Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle was tipped precariously in front of the redhead's right eye. It was clear to the occupants of the table that Frederick had been concealing it in his coat the entire time, but that didn't stop a collective gasp from making its rounds.

"I can kill them," he said simply.

"...Oh, what the _hell_. Is that an SS rifle?"

A tanned arm reached out from beneath the table and grasped the barrel of the rifle, twisting it upwards with a sickening creak. Frederick cried out shrilly as the rest watched Svetlana emerge, looping the metal continuously until it looked though the masculine cyborg had a pretzel where his gun ought to have been.

When the blonde finished, she snarled at Frederick.

"What the hell is this? Did you rob a museum? Jesus _Christ_," she said, slapping her forehead. "I never expected one of the halfies to be a Nazi bastard."

He was quiet, as there was a pause. Petrushka seemed to have fled the scene. Delilah was innocently reading a book.

Gwen piped up. "...Wh-what are Nazis?"

"...I...have to go," Frederick mumbled meekly, and dashed out of the library.


	10. gift 10

Later that afternoon, while most cyborgs were preparing for the Christmas banquet, there was a peculiar young man down by the empty shooting range. Somehow, he had roused quite some Section One employees, who all seemed to be protesting and holding signs to make this point.

Giuseppe observed them from the roof of an unspecified building, grim and somber. It was a freezing cold winter day, notable by his fur-lined jacket and earmuffs of a color likeness. His slacks were dark and nearly scruffy, his shoes were somewhat old. Beside him was a blond man who could barely pass as his older brother, donning a much more elegant suit and duster, as well as earmuffs.

The two men exchanged looks.

"It seems Heckler has created quite a scene," Jean stated, eyeing the boy in question who was holding a rather crude sign with 'BONG HITS 4 JESUS' scrawled on it.

"Yeah," Giuseppe replied, as Frederick threw the cardboard into the crowd. He then took out a megaphone and began addressing the masses, some words the handler could discern: 'abortion', 'unfair', 'my baby's mama's unborn fetus', 'love', and 'parenthood would be good for a girl as lovely as my Triela'.

After some moments, the brothers glanced at one another again.

"...We've gotta kill him."

"Yeah."


	11. gift 11

Meanwhile, across the clearing on another roof, Svetlana towered over the six-year-old Guinevere like a great, busty statue of which only the best men would admire from afar. Her coat went to her hips, a deep emerald pigment with several pockets and a wool hood, and her stockings were of ivory, trailing down to two knee-height, shiny boots. She looked as though she ought to be cold, but she never shivered once in Gwen's presence.

"He's an idiot."

"Yeah," Gwen replied, pulling her beanie hat more securely over her head and adjusting her hold on the AW50 Great Britain sniper rifle, her sights targeting Frederick's shoulder. She suddenly shuddered. "I'm cold."

"Suck it up," Svetlana said. "I barely wear anything and I'm fine."

Gwen frowned. "This rifle is kind of big..."

"Stop whining, you're giving me a headache."

"Couldn't you just do this, Lana?"

"You think I know how to aim? I'm poor with sniper rifles."

Gwen sighed. "What should I shoot, his head or...?"

Svetlana paused for a moment, her blue eyes widening as if she had an epiphany. A short blonde curl fell out of her hood.

"...Shoot his balls off."

Gwen coughed loudly and harshly, banging her kneecap into the side of the gun. She hastened to get a good aim of the poor man's jewels, her cheeks burning with embarrassment and guilt of what she was about to do. She glanced at Svetlana. "How much money is in this, again?"

"100 Euros if you shoot his shoulder, 300 if you get his nuts," she responded aptly, smiling now. "So shut up and do it."

The pipsqueak girl sighed miserably as her finger closed in on the trigger. She would be sure to get Svetlana back if she didn't pay up.

"Say bye-bye to your gems, you Nazi bastard," the Swede murmured.

Guinevere closed her eyes as she squeezed.

"_Ach!_"

A section of the rioting crowd was covered in blood. Frederick was screaming in German, which was mostly illegible to Gwen, save a few 'choice' words.

"_Dumme... Verrückte..._" he wheezed, slowly, dangerously. "_NUTTE!_"

"Oh, _leck mich, sie Hurensohn!_" Svetlana retorted, showing the brunet a somewhat rude hand gesture.

"W-what did you say?!" Gwen exclaimed, backing away slowly from the gun and hiding behind Svetlana — an easy feat to accomplish, considering the girl's massive height.

"You don't want to know." She slipped the six year old some money. "Here's €300. Go buy yourself a gelato and some MP3s."


	12. gift 12

There were rare occasions that the cyborgs would dress their best. While most handlers wore suits all day, the cyborgs took on a more casual dress code, which seemed to vary amongst them.

This was not any different when it came to dresses.

Amongst the long dining table were a few critical eyes, assessing the attire of each of the girls' dresses. Svetlana and Alessandro were two of these people, who were similarly hunched over the table, resting their head in one hand and practically sweeping the table with their blue eyes.

_Oh god, Henrietta looks like she's wearing a garbage bag,_ Svetlana mused. _I would never _dress_ like that._ She took a moment to praise herself for her eveningwear: a golden silk dress that came down to her thighs, leaving her arms exposed, costing her €2,000. The shoes, the same gold pigment, €800. Not to mention her jewelry or her Gucci handbag.

_What the hell is wrong with this girl's sense of dress?_ Alessandro thought, wincing at Alessa's horrific 1800s-style dress. It was the epitome of frills and lace, and certainly the most gaudy thing seated at the table that evening. _Jesus…_

Svetlana's eyes traveled to Alessandro across from her. She smirked. _What an ugly pinstripe suit. I don't wear suits, but lord, if I ever saw Ciro in that I think I'd have to kick him._

Alessandro met her gaze. _What is this girl supposed to be? The walking gold slab? "Look at me, I've got million-euro clothes on, mug me!" I wouldn't wear that even if I _was_ a chick._

"Interesting evening, huh?" she suggested dolly.

"Yep."


	13. gift 13

At the end of the day, Nazi accusations, crazed anti-abortion rallies, cyborg warfare, and million-euro dresses didn't really matter. To Giuseppe, at least. He was just glad he had survived another day without Henrietta going AWOL on him, or another cyborg going AWOL on him, or Jean going AWOL on him. Or pretty much anyone, for the most part. Giuseppe had a phobia of people going unexpectedly AWOL on him.

Sighing, he leaned over the railing and stared down into the Agency's courtyard. Desolate. Empty. Not a single body in sight. Perhaps now he could have a cigarette.

And lo and behold, Giuseppe found himself doing just that, puffing a large mushroom cloud of smoke into the fresh winter air. It felt so invigorating. So rejuvenating. So liberating. He could never smoke around Henrietta. He didn't want to further destroy her already poor health with his habits.

He thought of all the faces of the cyborgs, staring up at him with wide-eyed fascination. Creepy. Disturbing. He didn't bode well with a lot of bodies in a cramped space. Eating in the cafeteria made him nauseous. Terrified. So many different little girls, jabbering in Italian, French, German, Russian, Polish, Swedish...

"Ugh, god," he muttered, shivering.

"GIUSEPPE!"

"_AAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!_"

Down he went, over the railing, falling to the concrete below... His whole life seemed to flash before his eyes. He recalled himself at five, when Jean had shaved his head bald... He remembered when Enrica was born... He visualized when Enrica punched Jean in the face, and he Giuseppe felt such a triumphant feeling rush through him...

And suddenly, he couldn't feel his limbs.

"Giuseppe!" came Jean's voice overhead as he leaned over the railing, staring at his brother on the ground. "Are you alright?!"

"Yeah, I'm cool," he replied, sounding unconcerned. "Can't move, though. Might want to get me to a hospital."

● ● ●

A full-body cast was not something Giuseppe was familiar with. Suspended in a hospital bed, he could only watch Henrietta as she bawled hysterically on him, her noisy tears filling the room. "There, there," he said, trying to comfort her. "I'll be back on my feet in no time, Henrietta, so just relax."

"B-but you got _hurt_ and I didn't _save_ you and _now you're in a cast_ and I feel _responsible_ and you were in _pain_..."

"Seriously, just chill," Giuseppe pressed, and she looked up, sniffled, and dried her eyes.

"You're right, sir," she said, blowing her nose on a handkerchief. "I overreacted. I should be more grateful...t-that...you aren't dead..."

"Yes, precisely. Now please stop crying."

She nodded and sat back down, when he spoke up once more. "Henrietta, I have a confession to make. I haven't told anyone else besides Jean this."

"Y-yes, sir?"

He gulped. "You see, I... Sometimes I start to feel claustrophobic about working at the Agency..."

There was a tense moment of silence.

"...Why?" Henrietta managed to inquire, giving him a skeptical look.

'Why'. What a stupid question to ask, 'why'. Giuseppe could feel the rage simmering inside him, gripping at his veins, forcing itself out. He couldn't control his response.

"_Why?!_" he cried out indignantly, startling the young brunette. "Why? Why? Because there are so many damn cyborgs! That's why! Ow, oh god, the pain! Aaaaaagh! The pain! It burns! Call a nurse! _RAAAAASSSKKKK!_"

This time, it was Giuseppe who had gone AWOL on Henrietta. And pretty much the Agency as a whole.


	14. gift 14

"_Um, Marco, sir?"_

"_Yeah, what?"_

"_I'd... I'd really like one of those new iPhones they have out now!"_

"_..."_

**G I F T  
**fourth arc

There were many, many hallways and many, many buildings on the Social Welfare Agency grounds to get yourself lost in. Triela was wandering the corridor of one such building, a building which had no name, in search of her roommate, whom she had not seen all day, when she heard a peculiar, happy tune issuing from one of the rooms.

She opened one of the two double doors and saw none other than Claes herself, hammering away merrily at her grand piano. Amused, she said, "Well, well, look at this."

Claes suddenly stopped and turned to face her visitor. "What do you want, Triela?"

"Nothing, I just find it interesting that you're actually playing something, rather than banging on that thing like it's a pipe organ," Triela replied, snickering. "What was that, anyway? Sounded a little too happy for you."

"None of your business," Claes said, tapping one of the keys impatiently. "And I don't bang on it like a pipe organ. Now will you please go? I have more practicing to do."

"Nahh, I wanted to hang out with you, actually. Henrietta's been giving me the 'ribbon' treatment today." The blonde indicated her pigtails, which were held up by what seemed like a dozen different-colored ties. "But seriously, Claes, what were you playing?"

Claes sighed irritably, and said, "Okay, _if you must know_, I was playing 'Bananaphone'. Alright?"

"Bananawhuh?"

"'Bananaphone', it's a song by Raffi."

"...Did I need to ask?"

"Well, now you know why I didn't want to tell you."

Silently boggling, Triela turned on one foot and promptly exited the room.


	15. gift 15

It was the day after Christmas and Triela was happily listening to Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre in her dorm as she dressed hew new teddy bear in a pink lace-trimmed bow. Humming along to the opus, she didn't notice when her roommate had entered and sat down at the table until the song ended and a peculiar buzzing noise was issuing from an unknown source. Triela turned and realized that Claes had a pair of earphones on, that led to a full-size, black iPod.

Pausing shuffle mode, Triela pulled her own earphones out, and said, "Where did you get that from?"

Claes ignored her. A little more loudly: "_Where did you get that from?_"

Still, the bespectacled girl acted as though she couldn't hear her. Finally, Triela stomped over to Claes's side and pulled one earphone out. Immediately, she turned on her roommate and said, "_What?_"

"I asked you something, where did you get that from?"

"Get what?"

"_That!_" Triela said, indicating the black iPod. Claes looked down at it.

"Oh, _this_."

"Yes, that. I thought you said you lost your Nano."

Claes chuckled. "Oh, Triela, did you really believe me when I told you I had lost mine?"

"Yes..." the blonde muttered, her eyebrows contracting.

"Well, thing is, I didn't. I chucked it when I reached the limit of mp3s you can have on it and got this. I asked Jean nicely and finally he caved in and bought it for me as a 'reward' for contributing to the doctors' research."

Triela stood there, slackjaw, as Claes smirked and crossed her legs, apparently proud of herself for scoring an iPod and turning her roommate's brain into mush in one smooth go.

"So...what do you have on there?" Triela finally asked.

"Oh, you know, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Paola e Chiara, Rammstein, Morning Something-or-Another, Lacrimosa, a few of the songs from _Il traviata_, Mina..." Claes replied airily, going through the extremely long Artists list with her scroll wheel as a heavy gothic beat still raged from her loose earphone.

"Morning...Something-or-Another?" Triela repeated, bewildered.

"It's some sort of weird Japanese pop," Claes said. "Henrietta introduced me to it. It's kind of cute after a while, but it really grates on your nerves. Also, Petrushka is apparently into a trio called Perfume... She won't stop prattling on about how she does her morning exercises to an odd song called 'Linear Motor Girl' and she keeps trying to get me to listen to it."

Triela blinked. "I'm really out of the loop."


	16. gift 16

Speaking of Henrietta, at the same moment Triela and Claes were discussing the latter's new black iPod in their dormitory, the little brunette was currently cycling on the Agency campus with a blindingly pink bike, fitted with a small white basket lined with a rosy floral pattern, a horn, and multicolor tassels. Indeed, it was quite a spectacle, especially considering now that Henrietta had grown up from her formerly eleven-year-old assassin self and was finding it particularly difficult to pedal, her knees continuously smacking into her fingers as she gripped the handlebars.

As she trudged along the track, she could see Angelica's familiar black ponytail bobbing in the distance. Henrietta suddenly became aware of the song issuing from her earphones: A strange song, one sung in English, that she had received from Angelica personally. The brunette slowed as she picked up her Nano from its position in the basket and checked the artist:

_Endless Love  
Lionel Richie & Diana Ross  
Endless Love: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack_

Accompanying the text was a picture of the single cover. Indeed, Henrietta spent nights upon nights in the computer room in Section Two's offices, copiously researching information on all the music she received from her friends, or found otherwise on the Internet. It had become a hunger, an obsession, to have her artists, albums, and singles organized in alphabetical order, or by appropriate genre, or what-have-you. She added lyrics to each of the songs; speaking of lyrics...

"Oh, no, the song is ending soon," she said, and quickly rewound 'Endless Love' back to the beginning. "There we go." She clicked the center once, twice, and then one more time before the screen settled upon the lyrics for the song.

Then, without warning, Henrietta began to bellow the English words aloud. As the song continued, she grew louder, more impassioned, yet the quality of her singing slowly declining as she strained her vocal chords to deliver an impressive performance, though nobody was listening, save for Angelica, who had stopped and turned her head towards the direction of the awful melody. Henrietta zoomed past, her arms spread like an eagle preparing to take flight, her legs pedaling at ungodly speeds. She closed her eyes, allowing the song to overtake her with the knowledge that she was riding the bike that Giuseppe gave to her so long ago...

And then, suddenly, the chains locked, sending Henrietta soaring into the air.

● ● ●

Rico squinted at the sky, shielding her eyes from the morning sun's harsh rays. Through the thin whiteness of the clouds she could see a strangely lopsided figure bearing likeness to an eagle, and traveling at a remarkable speed. She tugged Jean's sleeve and pointed to it. "Look, sir, an eagle!"

Jean made a noncommittal noise sounding like "uhmm", not bothering to look up at the sight. He turned to Giuseppe. "So the mission is set? You and Henrietta will enter at approximately 11:02 PM, Hilshire and Triela will kill the bouncer and guard the door, Rico will standby" — the blonde girl suddenly tensed at her name being spoken aloud, and Jean placed a hand on her head not unlike a gesture an owner would employ to his vigilant dog — "in case anything goes wrong. Henrietta is to murder everyone in the nightclub while Beatrice takes the back entrance and secures the Padanian for questioning."

"Yeah, that's right," Giuseppe responded. "I just need to go over the mission with Henrietta."

"Where is she?"

"Riding her bike right now, I thi—"

He was cut off spontaneously by a thunderous crash. Instantly, Giuseppe snapped his gaze to the sky, searching it for the eagle-shaped figure Rico spoke of, only to find nothing but happy clouds staring back at him. He frowned thoughtfully.

"Uh, I'll go find her, Jean," he said, and quickly departed for the track. Jean wore a smug. "That's more like it. Let us go, Rico."

● ● ●

"Endless Love" © Lionel Richie & Diana Ross, 1981. Speaking of which, "Moskau" is © Dschingis Khan, 1979. Small world.


	17. gift 17

Dusty sunlight filters through the windows. She hits the PLAY button on the stereo system sitting in her lonely dorm and yawns, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The song begins, and this is something she's been doing for the past week or so to replace her morning exercises.

Petrushka stretches, then springs into a spirited rendition of Van McCoy's Hustle. She shakes her hips, waddles to the side, her arm flies into the air and down and up and down and up and grapevine one, two, three, turn, grapevine one, two, three... Her eyes are alight with a fire that not even her missions can ignite. It is an inextinguishable flame burning in her soul. It fuels her. It propels her. Her arm skyrockets into the air and smacks into the light on the ceiling, but she does not care. She takes two steps forward, two steps back, one, two, three, one, two three... She bumps into a desk. She trips but regains her balance shortly thereafter. The rain cannot even put out her flame. There is simply no end.

And then the song finishes and she gets dressed and prepares for her day without a word, because no being in the Agency will ever know of her method of waking up in the morning. It is the most secret of secrets.


End file.
